shel wrote:Did Brad Warner agree that Jundo should be booted from the Dogen Sangha?

I think this worth repeating again and again as some people try first one angle of attack and, if that doesn't work, another then another:

Let me give you my rule of thumb:

If you find people who seem agitated, angry, resentful, fixated or with an ax to grind criticizing Jundo or Taigu or Treeleaf as "not their cup of tea", then consider their motivations and mindset. Is that the kind of criticism you want to listen to? If such people say "it is not good", then that may be an indication that you should check out the place. Please also beware of "enlightened" voices who will tell you what is "real Buddhism".

If you find people who seem calm, balanced, level headed and open who say that a Sangha and its teachers are their "cup of tea", there may be no better and more compelling recommendation.

Both groups of people may be giving a strong recommendation to Treeleaf for opposite reasons!

tigerdown wrote:If you find people who seem calm, balanced, level headed and open who say that a Sangha and its teachers are their "cup of tea", there may be no better and more compelling recommendation.

I am sure that a number of Reverend Jim Jones's followers would have fitted this description too, so it hardly works as a recommendation for any type of group.

In Greece we say: it's the slow, gently flowing rivers that you should be afraid of.

tigerdown wrote:If you find people who seem calm, balanced, level headed and open who say that a Sangha and its teachers are their "cup of tea", there may be no better and more compelling recommendation.

I am sure that a number of Reverend Jim Jones's followers would have fitted this description too, so it hardly works as a recommendation for any type of group.

In Greece we say: it's the slow, gently flowing rivers that you should be afraid of.

What appealed to me at first when I visited the Tendai Buddhist Institute was that people there listened to each other, and they listened to me when it was my turn to speak. They cared enough to listen carefully to each other, patiently. And they answered direct questions directly. I bring this up because I think positive or affirmative characteristics are more useful in determining if you want to live and work and learn with a given group (or not!) than negative ones.

It's generally more straightforward to seek out and find good situations than to merely avoid the worst ones, to put it simply.

Did a search for 'Jundo' at Brad Warners website and found the following. It appears the split with Dogen Sangha may have been a little violent.

After the alleged “assault” that Jundo claimed occurred in Tokyo at a meeting of Dogen Sangha, I read all of Mr. Cohen’s claims. I then spoke personally face-to-face with Peter Rocca, the Dogen Sangha teacher Jundo alleges assaulted him. I have known Peter a long time and I trust him to tell me the truth (Peter’s version of events appears in the email below). Furthermore, I spoke with two other people who were present when the so-called “assault” occurred and their versions of events concurred with Peter’s.

If I had had any reason to believe that Peter Rocca actually assaulted Mr. Cohen, I would have taken appropriate action as the head of Dogen Sangha International. However, I could find no compelling reason to believe he had.

shel wrote:Did a search for 'Jundo' at Brad Warners website and found the following. It appears the split with Dogen Sangha may have been a little violent.

After the alleged “assault” that Jundo claimed occurred in Tokyo at a meeting of Dogen Sangha, I read all of Mr. Cohen’s claims. I then spoke personally face-to-face with Peter Rocca, the Dogen Sangha teacher Jundo alleges assaulted him. I have known Peter a long time and I trust him to tell me the truth (Peter’s version of events appears in the email below). Furthermore, I spoke with two other people who were present when the so-called “assault” occurred and their versions of events concurred with Peter’s.

If I had had any reason to believe that Peter Rocca actually assaulted Mr. Cohen, I would have taken appropriate action as the head of Dogen Sangha International. However, I could find no compelling reason to believe he had.

tigerdown wrote:If you find people who seem calm, balanced, level headed and open who say that a Sangha and its teachers are their "cup of tea", there may be no better and more compelling recommendation.

I am sure that a number of Reverend Jim Jones's followers would have fitted this description too, so it hardly works as a recommendation for any type of group.

In Greece we say: it's the slow, gently flowing rivers that you should be afraid of.

Oh, are we now going to compare Treeleaf to Jim Jones' suicide cult? What comes next, a Hitlerian Germany reference?

Is that because the people from Treeleaf who came here described a helpful and wholesome place? There are many cults in Buddhism, and I have seen some over the last 30 years. I could name names of some I thought were ready to go off a cliff following their Guru. One of the reasons I am attracted to Treeleaf is that Taigu and Jundo bend over backwards to avoid the Guru role.

Furthermore, because it is possibly the most open and visible Buddhist group in the world because of its fully online structure, it would be very difficult to hide any shenanigans. That is obvious because all that Shel can dig up despite his diligent attempts is that someone punched Jundo in the nose several years ago. Oh yes, sounds like a suicide cult to me! Keep trying.

Because Treeleaf is maybe the most open to the world Buddhist group ever thanks to a little thing called Google, you should be able to find some real dirt.YOUR INABILITY TO FIND THAT TERRIBLE DIRT DESPITE SEVERAL PEOPLES' DILIGENT EFFORTS OVER MANY DAYS HERE IS THE BEST TESTIMONY FOR THE PLACE.

Please keep looking! The less you find, the more it speaks out for the goodness of the place. KEEP SEARCHING!

Tig

Last edited by tigerdown on Wed Feb 13, 2013 4:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

If I may speak of one situation I was very concerned about at one time because of the degree of Guru worship and other things going on, that was when I was around Trungpa's group for a few years. Talk about a lack of information and unusual behavior! Decisions were made behind the scenes, and in retrospect we should have been concerned when they created a secret police and started wearing military uniforms, and hinting that Trungpa and his wife would soon be the Emperor and Empress of the world government or some such thing. Here is Lady Diana, Trungpa's wife, in uniform.

A couple of years later, the Regent, who was then leading us, killed a young man by the Regent's hiding that he had AIDS. For years, both during and even after that we had no information on what was going on, and we were living right around all these people and seeing them constantly.

Now, that is a group where a simple Google will turn up 1000 unusual stories and scandals (unfortunately we did not have it back then so it was easier to hide things), and it is now considered today a pretty harmless and mainstream Buddhist group, which I think it is for the most part now. Please compare.

Thats not kind to call a teacher names(or anyone else for that matter)

The teacher you call bozo,might be the same teacher who kept someone from commiting suicide,and really changed their life for the better.

Okay so people have past....we all do,the question is what is the present like?How is the Sangha today?how do the students view their teacher today?what are the present complaints?is the teachers views in line with what the sutras or current schools teach?

tigerdown wrote:because of its fully online structure, it would be very difficult to hide any shenanigans.

I don't follow your logic. Are you saying it's a good thing that physical contact seems to be less likely.

tigerdown wrote:That is obvious because all that Shel can dig up despite his diligent attempts is that someone punched Jundo in the nose several years ago.

If you call typing "hardcore zen" into the address bar of this browser, and then clicking on the hardcore zen link, followed by typing "Jundo" into the search box, and then publishing the result here diligent, then that's diligent. But yeah, that's all I could dig up. What else is there?

tigerdown wrote:YOUR INABILITY TO FIND THAT TERRIBLE DIRT DESPITE SEVERAL PEOPLES' DILIGENT EFFORTS OVER MANY DAYS HERE IS THE BEST TESTIMONY FOR THE PLACE.

tigerdown wrote:Oh, are we now going to compare Treeleaf to Jim Jones' suicide cult? What comes next, a Hitlerian Germany reference?

See, you are overreacting again. A few posts back you said that an organisation can be judged by the "calm, balanced, level headed and open" members that comprise it, and yet here you are being agitated, unbalanced... I did not compare Treeleaf to a suicide cult, I questioned your logic by reference to an example that shows that your logic is flawed.

tigerdown wrote:YOUR INABILITY TO FIND THAT TERRIBLE DIRT DESPITE SEVERAL PEOPLES' DILIGENT EFFORTS OVER MANY DAYS HERE IS THE BEST TESTIMONY FOR THE PLACE.

I agree that is the best testimony for Treeleaf.

Thank you for that bit of honesty.

I am just trying to establish a rational baseline for what constitutes a "controversial" Buddhist group. Jundo has been compared to another group where the teacher invented his credentials (Jundo's creds have been checked and approved by two national organizations):

You have raised Jim Jones as an example that "some people liking a place is evidence of a dark side", and we have examples of famous Buddhist organizations with documented cases of the teachers getting into DUI car accidents, fathering children with students. death, violence, rape, drugs and more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_ ... ontroversy

In contrast, all you have been able to find in the case of Jundo and Taigu, after all your searching, is that a troubled gentleman took a poke at his nose a couple of years ago (it feels like some of the people on this thread might like to as well),and that Jundo was asked by his teacher to butt out of Brad Warner's group because Jundo pressed for HIGHER, STRICTER, modern ethical and governance standards!

It is a HOOT!. Shell, you ARE the best friend that Treeleaf could ever ask for because your dogged search for dirt turns up goose eggs. You go, sir! Keep at it, and the less you find despite your hunt, the more you unintentionally speak for the integrity of Treeleaf Sangha and its two teachers. It must be very frustrating to you and some others here that you can't find much.

Tige

Last edited by tigerdown on Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

tigerdown wrote:You have raised Jim Jones as an example that "some people liking a place is evidence of a dark side", and we have examples of famous Buddhist organizations with documented cases of the teachers getting into DUI car accidents, fathering children with students. death, violence, rape, drugs and more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_ ... ontroversy

Now you are distorting the facts. I (not "shel") gave the Jim Jones example to show that just because a couple of members may appear "calm, balanced, level headed and open" it is NOT evidence of a "bright" side.

If you cannot respond logically to my premise then do not respond to it at all or just admit that I have a point. Intentionally distorting my point to suit your lack of logic is not considered fair play. Refrain from doing so again.

gregkavarnos wrote:I (not "shel") gave the Jim Jones example to show that just because a couple of members may appear "calm, balanced, level headed and open" it is NOT evidence of a "bright" side.

Let us suppose that various groups of members who appear "calm, balanced, level headed and open" report a positive experience with, respectively, (1) Treeleaf Sangha, (2) Drikung Kyabgön Chungtsang Rinpoche (3) the Peace Corp (4) Jim Jones People's Temple. I would say that, yes, in fact the testimony of those individuals of each being "their cup of tea" and reporting a positive atmosphere would tend to be evidence of a "bright side" and positive atmosphere at (1) (2) and (3), but not at (4) because contradicted by piles of dead bodies. Absent some evidence of a negative, the positive evidence is evidence of a positive.

In Greece we say: it's the slow, gently flowing rivers that you should be afraid of.

I would say that there is likely little to be afraid of about that quiet river if, looking at many years of reports and statistics, there is no report of any particular danger and many reports of positive experience.

We have a saying: The absence of evidence is not evidence. In other words, the lack of evidence that, for example, Barack Obama was born in Nigeria is not evidence that he was born in Nigeria while proof has been cleverly hidden (absent evidence of that hiding). In fact, while the possibility remains that he was born in Nigeria, the likelihood is small because of the absence of evidence, coupled with many people doing their hardest to "dig up some dirt" but failing to find much more than goose eggs.

If you would like additional people who have had experiences at Treeleaf to come here and tell there tale, I am sure it will be arranged. 50 people would be more evidence than 10. However, I assure you it will be not necessary, because almost all the reports will be equally positive about the atmosphere and quality of teachings there. That will include many people like myself with long years of experience in Buddhism. Of course, I say "almost all", because it is nearly impossible to please everyone, whether with a restaurant, movie or religious group. However, the overwhelming majority of reports will be positive. Furthermore, even if there are some unhappy passengers, what you will find is a total absence of negative reports involving truly harmful activities. What you will find is an overwhelming majority of people reporting that they have found Treeleaf and its Teachers rewarding to their Buddhist Practice, including a few old Buddhist hands like myself who find the place very great.

If you would like, I am sure that such a survey or vote can be arranged. I am happy to talk to someone about setting it up for you any way you would wish to structure the survey. Absent negative evidence to contradict the results, yes, it is evidence of a "bright side" and makes the absence of a "bright side" increasingly less likely.

I repeat ...

THE INABILITY TO FIND THAT TERRIBLE DIRT DESPITE SEVERAL PEOPLES' DILIGENT EFFORTS OVER MANY DAYS HERE IS THE BEST TESTIMONY FOR THE PLACE.

I hope I did not misstate your point.

Tige

Last edited by tigerdown on Wed Feb 13, 2013 1:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If you took a survey of active Scientologists, the chances are you would receive a great majority of positive reports about Scientology. However, those positive reports might be discounted because, with a little digging around, one can find much dirt, negative evidence and reports of former members to fill books:

However, if one conducts of survey of active Quakers, the chance are that you would receive a great majority of positive reports about Quakerism. However, there likely would be few negative reports despite digging around. Thus, one might assume that Quakerism is a more positive religious experience for its participants.

In this case, the number of positive reports of a wholesome experience and good teaching, coupled with the fact that nobody seems to be able to identify any reports of a serious negative despite serious efforts to find such negative reports, must lead to the conclusion that the place is likely not too bad, and maybe quite good.

tigerdown wrote:Let us suppose that various groups of members who appear "calm, balanced, level headed and open" report a positive experience with, respectively, (1) Treeleaf Sangha, (2) Drikung Kyabgön Chungtsang Rinpoche (3) the Peace Corp (4) Jim Jones People's Temple. I would say that, yes, in fact the testimony of those individuals of each being "their cup of tea" and reporting a positive atmosphere would tend to be evidence of a "bright side" and positive atmosphere at (1) (2) and (3), but not at (4) because contradicted by piles of dead bodies. Absent some evidence of a negative, the positive evidence is evidence of a positive.

The absence of evident evidence does not mean that no evidence exists.

I would say that there is likely little to be afraid of about that quiet river if, looking at many years of reports and statistics, there is no report of any particular danger.

That's because you obviously have no experience with rivers.

If you would like additional people who have had experiences at Treeleaf to come here and tell there tale, I am sure it will be arranged. 50 people would be more evidence than 10.

The presence of a cheer squad cannot be taken as evidence of the capacity of the football team. I can find 50 people that say that Jesus was the son of God and rose from the dead, the only thing this would prove is that they are Christians. On a more "Buddhist" note: I could bring in 50 New Kadampa members who will swear black and blue that the gylapo they worship is an all-round fun loving guy and that the NKT is not a cult. So what? PS I am not interested in whether Treeleaf is "good" or "bad" I am interested in keeping the discussion rational and logical.

gregkavarnos wrote:The absence of evident evidence does not mean that no evidence exists.

Greg, you are exactly right. That is why I am willing to entertain the possibility of Barack Obama being born in Nigeria, or Jesus being the son of God born of a virgin birth, despite the presence of "evident evidence".

However, absent the presence of "evident evidence", I personally believe it unlikely while granting and honoring the free right of others to believe so.

Furthermore, absent the presence of negative evidence, I do not feel justified in drawing a negative conclusion about some person or group simply because it "might be so". Jews might kill Christian babies on the Sabbath because it is rumored, and it might be so that the evidence is carefully hidden. However, absent the evidence, I will discount the rumor. Show me some evidence (not to be found, by the way), and I would consider the point.

I would not be so fast to criticize Treeleaf or any religion or religious group without "evident evidence" to justify doing so. That would be a kind of religious discrimination in my opinion, and in the opinion of many other members of the American Civil Liberties Union I expect.

I hope I am being reasonable and logical enough for you, because I am certainly trying.

We have on one hand people expressing reservations about Trealeaf online format, people expressing reservations about Trealeaf teacher, Jundo, and a number of Trealeaf members defending both.

Well, to what end?

If they teach adharma at Trealeaf, lets discuss that. If there are some pertinent revelations about Jundo, lets see them. Otherwise this just goes to undermine people's practice there. It is corrosive without offering anything.

Jundo and I have disagreed many times in the past. He may not conform to my idea of a "first-rate teacher," but that's just my opinion and I may well be wrong (I have been in the past due to reading too much into this medium). So if folks have no access to real-world Sangha, why deny them an opportunity to practice with Trealeaf? Why rubbish the place and the teacher and undermine their practice?

I think if we have reservations, they are best kept to ourselves. If we have facts to offer - that's another story.

And if people have access to a real-world Sangha, I think they should experience it. In fact I think it is good to experience several teachers.

But frankly, isn't our time better spent practicing than doing the circles around this thread? I mean it is rare to encounter the Dharma, it's a great blessing and we should all feel immensely grateful to the Buddha all the way down to our teachers who pass it on to us. I am sure we do. And if Jundo is an imperfect vessel, so what? Whose teacher is perfect? All we can hope for is that people's practice takes root and then they will find the way, even with the most imperfect teacher.